Heretofore in the use of torque clutch couplings employed for transmitting the rotative drive to an adapter or driven member which may include a tool such as a tap, a reamer or other tool, or which could be any driven member adapted to do work such as operating a conveyor or other mechanism, when the driven member encounters a torque or resistance in excess of a predetermined torque damage or destruction or excessive wear of the coupling may result.
Heretofore in some devices of this type wherein there has been such excess torque, there has been a partial disengagement automatically between the drive clutch and the driven clutch but wherein, there is nevertheless some engagement remaining between the two clutch members such as will create noise and chatter and eventually wear out the coupling.
Examples of some efforts to overcome this problem are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,521,314 and 3,787,136.